H & H SaddleReining SaddleReining Saddles

Purchase: I purchased this saddle at Giddy Up Tack shop in Masaryktown, FL for my little 4 year old reining mare for $950.

Likes: I like the color of the leather and the tooling that I chose.

Dislikes: I was told that the company had been making saddles for 100 years and they made a good, quality saddle. I was able to "customize" my saddle with leather color and tooling options. I gave them my inseam, (I'm 5 ft tall and have trouble finding short fenders) and a tracing of my horses withers for fit. I also ordered a rawhide wrapped "reining" style saddle horn. The first time that I sat in the saddle the long screw with the concho under the pommel just fell out, (it was in a horrible spot to begin with and prevented the stirrup fenders from having any forward swing). Due to the wide design of the fenders, my legs could not move forward at all and placed them slightly behind me which pitched my weight forward. The cantle was lopsided to the right which made me think that the whole seat sat crooked on the tree. The leather quality was poor. My "reining" horn was very small, pretty much useless to hold onto if you needed it. The poorly placed conchos at the rear/bottom of the seat were not aligned the same on each side.They sat directly under the outside of each thigh.

Quality: I rode in the saddle for a total of about 5 hours and it showed excessive wear due to the poor quality of the leather. The wear on the leather probably was also due to how unbalanced it made you ride. The "silver" on the conchos is already peeling off and the buckles are made of a poor quality metal.

Summary: Overall, a VERY poor quality saddle. Giddy Up refused to allow me to return the saddle so this has been a $950 mistake.